Wonga take money off a child

Sealing their reputation as a caring, sharing payday lender, Wonga has raided the account of an innocent 15 year old boy whose bank details were used by fraudsters to take out a loan.

Obviously, you have to be 18 to borrow cash, but greedy Wonga didn’t check the details closely enough, and failed to spot that the account actually belonged to Simon Oliver, now 16, from East Sussex.

The poor lad tried to take money out on a school trip, only to find that Wonga had drained it of £260. Not only that, but IT WAS HIS BIRTHDAY AND CHRISTMAS MONEY THAT HE’D SAVED UP. (Let’s just take a moment here to well up with indignant tears).

Simon’s bank refunded the money, but the trouble won’t be over for Wonga. According to Watchdog, which will be getting its teeth into the story on tonight’s show, there have been 386 reported fraudulent loans granted by the company – some amounting to thousands of pounds.

The Office of Fair Trading are currently investigating the whole payday loan industry - and MPs are calling for much stricter measures, including real time credit checks. Let’s hope these shabby shysters get their arses kicked soon.

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4 comments

shiftynifty

No doubt their sock puppets will be along shortly to turn or spin the positive on this story
They have form
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/nov/21/wonga-apologises-stella-creasy-abusive-twitter-messages
Good story Lucy